The friar then opened the door with caution, and entered, followed by all his associates, Charlie Scott bringing up the rear, and whispering to those next him in a tremulous voice,--"Od that body's mad! He'll lead us into some ill-faur'd snapper. Dinna be ower rash, callans. Just look afore ye." Instead of the great enchanter, however, they found only an old woman, so busily engaged with something on the fire, that she scarcely deigned to regard them as they entered. She had a wooden tube, like the barrel of a gun, with which she blew up her fire; and she kept blowing at it till the flame came above the lip of her caldron, and let her see into it; for she had no lamp, nor any other light save that which came from the fire. When she had made it blaze thus high, she spoke to herself, and without taking her mouth from the tube; saying some words to the following purport:-- "Sotter, sotter, my wee pan, To the spirit gin ye can; When the scum turns blue, And the blood bells through, There's something aneath that will change the man." When Charlie saw her unchristian-like face, and heard her mumbling these horrid words through her long hollow tube, he turned his back and fled, taking shelter in a void entrance, to which he was led by some light that fell into it from the rays of the moon. Full hardly was he then bested, for he still deemed that he heard the witch's rites at a distance; and the faint ray of the moon through a narrow aperture made the rest of the space appear so shadowy and dim, that Charlie saw he was in a dangerous situation, and actually began to fancy he beheld a face in the dark staring at him, and still coming nearer. It was no time to stand there; so he fled with all his might. But in his dismay he lost every kind of aim, or consideration whither he was going, and at once stumbled on the undermost step of a stone stair. Thinking the apparition he had seen was by that time hard upon him, and no other way that he knew of open for flight, he rose and pursued his course straight up stairs, in a state of perturbation hardly to be accounted for. The first landing place that he came to he ran himself against a door, and not finding farther entrance he faced about, and, leaning over the balluster, he set up such a yell as never was before breathed from lungs. It is true he neither heard nor saw aught of the apparition; but Charlie was a sensible man, and he was certain it might be there for any thing that he knew; so he set up the same kind of cry that he was wont to do when he lost his neighbours in a mist, or in a night foray, only about ten times or so louder. "Hilloa! Tam Craik! friar! hilloa! d--n ye a'; what for winna ye come wi' a light?"